With a background of the oncoming of an aging society, care-giving for aged people is becoming a focus of attention in recent years. Accidents caused by falling are seen as a problem particularly for aged people whose physical functions are debilitated. Furthermore, the role of rehabilitation is believed to increase drastically in the future from the standpoint of returning for aged people into society. Moreover, the consciousness of health care is growing among not only aged people but also ordinary citizens in general in recent years.
In such a background, preventing falling and establishing indices for health care or indices that allow objective judgment of the progress of rehabilitation are believed to grow in importance considerably in the future.
Conventionally, outputs from an acceleration sensor or inclination sensor are proposed as the methods of detecting falling. Furthermore, with respect to rehabilitation, a doctor or helper accompanies the patient and watches him/her all the time and judgment on the progress of rehabilitation is left up to the doctor or helper.
Furthermore, since the possibility of falling generally increases as fluctuation of the center of gravity intensifies, a technique of measuring the degree of fluctuation of the center of gravity is used as a measure of danger of falling and is also being gradually introduced at medical work fronts as an apparatus of detecting fluctuation of the center of gravity. This apparatus is also used to measure the progress of rehabilitation by observing variations in fluctuation of the center of gravity on a time-series basis. As this apparatus of detecting fluctuation of the center of gravity, an apparatus that records fluctuation of the center of gravity with an examinee mounting on a pressure detection plate (floor reaction force meter), etc., already exists (e.g., see Japanese Patent No. 2760472, Japanese Patent No. 2823841 and Japanese Patent No. 2823842, the entire disclosure of which are incorporated herein by reference in its entirety).
As described above, introduction of some apparatuses is being started as the apparatus of detecting fluctuation of the center of gravity from the standpoints of prevention of falling and rehabilitation, but the prices of those apparatuses are expensive, as they can cost several thousands of dollars. For this reason, though the importance of the apparatuses is widely recognized, they have not become widespread in general hospitals and are merely owned by those medical doctors specializing in neurological internal medicine, etc., who are interested in data itself of the apparatuses of detecting fluctuation of the center of gravity.
Furthermore, since the conventional apparatuses are of a stationary type, they require dedicated installation places and take time and effort in measurement and cannot be said to be easy to use.
Furthermore, for an analysis of an equilibrium state according to these prior arts, the examinee must mount on a load detecting means such as a pressure detection plate and the problem is that the area in which motion takes place or posture is limited to an extremely narrow area.